Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) Stock Gets Downgrade from Wall Street Zen

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) was downgraded by research analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report issued on Saturday, Wall Street Zen reports.

NVMI has been the topic of several other reports. Needham & Company LLC decreased their target price on shares of Nova from $640.00 to $570.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 7th. Cantor Fitzgerald dropped their price target on shares of Nova from $600.00 to $500.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Citigroup cut shares of Nova from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $550.00 to $415.00 in a research note on Thursday, October 8th. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $600.00 price target on shares of Nova in a report on Thursday, August 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Nova in a report on Friday, October 2nd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $499.44.

Nova Price Performance

NASDAQ NVMI opened at $321.20 on Friday. Nova has a 52 week low of $266.43 and a 52 week high of $615.99. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $368.41 and its 200-day simple moving average is $447.17. The firm has a market cap of $10.21 billion, a PE ratio of 39.75, a P/E/G ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.79.

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 7th. The semiconductor company reported $2.51 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.41 by $0.10. Nova had a net margin of 28.84% and a return on equity of 21.41%. The firm had revenue of $254.96 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $250.33 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.20 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 15.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Nova will post 9.89 EPS for the current year.

Nova declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, September 2nd that allows the company to buy back $200.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the semiconductor company to buy up to 1.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Share repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Gabriel Waisman sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $342.27, for a total transaction of $513,405.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 27,214 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,314,535.78. This represents a 5.22% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Shay Wolfing sold 3,864 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $363.28, for a total value of $1,403,713.92. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 21,409 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,777,461.52. The trade was a 15.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. TimesSquare Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Nova during the second quarter valued at about $15,675,000. Cetera Investment Advisers raised its stake in shares of Nova by 51.1% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 14,332 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $6,224,000 after acquiring an additional 4,844 shares during the period. Hsbc Holdings PLC lifted its holdings in shares of Nova by 94.3% in the 4th quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 27,115 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $9,077,000 after acquiring an additional 13,160 shares during the last quarter. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. acquired a new position in shares of Nova in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,647,000. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Nova by 51.6% in the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 12,444 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $6,577,000 after acquiring an additional 4,238 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.99% of the company’s stock.

About Nova

Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ: NVMI) is an Israel-based provider of process control and metrology solutions for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The company develops systems that help chipmakers measure and control critical wafer characteristics during production, supporting improvements in process performance, yield and device quality.

Its product portfolio includes optical and X-ray metrology systems used to measure dimensions, film thickness, material composition and other parameters across semiconductor manufacturing processes.